The House
The House is a Large, almost magical place which is the near-epicentre of the universe. It is the place of most of Arthur's adventures against the Trustees. In The Real World When Arthur sees it when it is in his world, it takes over several blocks and is surrounded by a large wall. It is made up a variety of Architecture and you can not keep your eyes on one place for too long, as there is just to much to see. The Only humans to have seen The House are Arthur, Leaf and Silvie. Arthur can see it because he is the rightful heir Leaf can see it because her grandmother was apparently a witch and Silvie saw it with Scamandos' Glasses. Sections The House is made up of seven parts, each having its own ruler and workers. They are listed in the Order in which Arthur has visited them in. The Lower House The Lower House was ruled by Mister Monday. Mister Monday had been inflicted with Sloth and as his sloth crept through the Lower House, it became even more in-efficient. By the time Arthur had arrived, many things would have been lost. Under the rule of Dame Primus, the Lower House was improved, but was still incredibly inefficent. It was destroyed at the start of Superior Saturday by a wave of nothing that broke through from the Far Reaches. Notable Locations include: *Monday's Dayroom *The Deep Coal Celler *The Old One's Prison *The Seven Dials (Moved by the time Of Superior Saturday) The Far Reaches The Far Reaches was Grim Tuesday's part of The House. In the middle of a room known as the Grand Cavern, there was a spring that produced Nothing for the Grim to shape with his Key. But, Tuesday was unhappy with the amount it produced, so he dug a shaft into the foundations of the House to mine more Nothing. Grim Tuesday dug his pit deeper and deeper until it took up most of The Far Reaches. By the time Arthur arrived, there had been a train running around the edge for three hundred years. After Arthur took posession of the Reaches, Dame Primus promised that they would fill in the pit and re-establish the spring. As of Drowned Wednesday, It was only a fraction of a percent complete. The entire Far Reaches was destroyed in a Wave of Nothing caused by Superior Saturday. Notable Locations include: *Up station *The Grim's Treasure Tower *The Im-Material Concrete Dam The Border Sea The Border Sea was Duchess Wednesday's share of the House. After the Will was split, Wednesday had the urge to eat, and she ate tons of food a day. But, instead of growing very fat, she used her Key to keep her body in shape. One day, she realised that the spreading sea and her needing to eat were connected. She tried to free her part of the Will, and asked Saturday to free hers as it would help. Saturday however, got the Trustees, save Monday as of his sloth, to take Wednesday's Key's Powers away. Without the full power of her Key, Wednesday began to grow. After a weeks legnth of Transformation and eating her Noon and Dusks and her Nissers, Wednesday became a giant whale. Becoming a Giant Whale made the Sea Levels rise and soon nearly the whole Border Sea was flooded, leaving only Port Wednesday and The Lighthouse (now the Pyramid) above sea level. All warehouses and important buildings were turned into ships, and the Denizens becoming sailors. The sea is still high and much of it rests in Nothing. Dame Primus has not Called the Sea in, even though Arthur asked her to. Notable locations include: *Port Wednesday *The Triangle The Great Maze The Great Maze is a demesne that was ruled by Sir Thursday. It is a gigantic, chessboard-like arrangement of one thousand by one thousand terraformed tiles, whereof each is one mile long and one mile wide. At each sunset the tiles change their locations, allowing any attackers to be split and easily attacked by the Glorious Army of the Architect; a means known as Tectonic Strategy. There are several fixed tiles, such as the Citadel, Fort Transformation, and a few others. The Citadel is the main Headquarters of the Maze, where Thursday himself makes his residence, and Fort Transformation is where new recruits spend a year of training before going on to serve the last 99 years of their tenure in one of the various factions in the Army. Tile 500/500, one of the four central tiles, is the “master tile” of the Maze, in that no other tile may move its location unless this one is unhindered. Therefore to fasten it in place (as in the novel Sir Thursday) is to render the Maze immobile. At one end of the Maze is a mountain range. Within this range is a tunnel that connects to the Void of Nothing, by which controlled amounts of Nithlings are allowed into the Maze so that the Army may fight them. There are four gates within the tunnel; one gilded in gold, one in silver, one in bronze, and finally an Immaterial gate, the “Cleargate”. Each gate is operated by a single lever in the Border Fort above the tunnel. The gates are opened in various ways depending on the amount of Nithlings Sir Thursday wishes to be brought into the Maze. During Sir Thursday, all four gates were opened against rules, whereupon a vast, uncontrollable amount of Nithlings entered the Maze. Unlike the Nithlings Denizens are used to fighting, these Nithlings are smart, organized, and near-Denizen in their attributes. It is revealed that these Nithlings are under the command of the Piper. The New Nithlings then took control of the Border Fort, and kept the gates open past when they were to be closed, allowing huge numbers of New Nithlings to enter. As of Superior Saturday, the Citadel became the base of Arthur's operations in the absence of the Lower House and Far Reaches. When the New Nithlings damaged the mountain wall that barricaded the Maze from the Void of Nothing, this put the Maze in danger of dissolution. During Lord Sunday, the Glorious Army of the Architect flees to the safety of the Middle House after the split Dame Primus was unable to deal with the Mountain shield. Suzy appears and quickly is whisked away by a rearguard led by Marshal Dusk as Nothing dissolved the Citadel. Later when Leaf became Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door, she sensed the Great Maze collapse into the Void. Notable locations include: *Sir Thursday's Citadel *Fort Transformation *Mountain Fort *White Keep *Eastern Boundary Water Defense *Star Fort The Middle House The Middle House is a giant, thrice-terraced mountain consisting of three large plateaux previously under the control of Lady Friday who is affected by Lust. The plateaux are connected by the Extremely Grand Canal, a waterway whose water transports any writing to its desired destination. In Lady Friday, due to Friday's obsession with experiencing, it became thoroughly wintry. Each of the plateaux, or “shelves”, serves a different function. The bottom, and the largest, called the Flat, is location of the Guild of Gilding and Illumination and of Letterer's Lark. The next shelf, the Middle of the Middle, houses the Guild of Illustration and Augmentation. Finally, the Top Shelf has the High Guild of Binding and Restoration. In between the Top Shelf and the crest is a crack in the mountain leading to the Eyrie of the Winged Servants of the Night, which included the former prison of the Fifth Part of the Will. On the very crest of the mountain is Lady Friday’s Scriptorium, where, in Lady Friday, she leaves a replica of her Key, in hopes of killing Arthur, the Piper, and Saturday. This trap, although it failed, opened onto the Void and managed to destroy the entire Scriptorium and a good portion of the mountain top; however Arthur, using all of the four Keys under his control, managed to stop the void but was unable to fill the gap it left behind. At the end of Lady Friday, Arthur granted Dame Primus Stewardship of the Great Maze and the Middle House, although he retained the Fifth Key. In Superior Saturday, the bulwark between the Middle House and the Lower House was weakening due to erosion caused by Nothing. The Lower House and Far Reaches had been destroyed when the Pit was breached and the two demenses were consumed by the Void of Nothing. Dame Primus is told that a geyser of Nothing has sprung nearby Letterer's Lark and, upon Arthur's insistence, spilts into two parts, Dame Quarto and Dame Septum; one to deal with the bulwark of the Middle House, now the only protection of the Middle House against the Void, and the other to repair the mountain barrier of the Great Maze. Towards the end of Lord Sunday it is consumed by the void. Noteable Locations include: *Friday's Scriptorium *Foil Mill *Extremely Grand Canal *High Guild The Upper House The Upper House was ruled by Superior Saturday who is affected by Envy. It is in the Upper House where House Sorcerers are trained. The Upper House consists office units on moveable scaffolding, which Piper's Children are employed to maintain and move as directed. In Lady Friday and Superior Saturday, Superior Saturday tries to stop the phone connection to the Lower House, the Far Reaches, the Border Sea, the Great Maze and the Middle House, but is unable to do so because the metaphysical wiring falls under the authority of the Far Reaches and the phone operators are located in the Lower House. This demense is in perpetual rain, due to the fact that the Sixth Part of the Will was broken up into type and dispersed into the water. The Denizens working here have umbrellas to stop the water, but these are sometimes ineffective. Higher Denizens also collect water and let it drop in waterfalls on their inferiors. This enabled the Will to communicate with Arthur. The papers they work on stay dry despite the rain. The ceiling of the Upper House is actually the floor of the Incomparable Gardens and is shrouded usually in clouds. Sunday constantly taunts Saturday by parting the clouds only for her, exciting her envy. Saturday, for almost ten thousand years, has been building a tower with her private viewing chamber at the top while the other floors are slotted in below. The purpose of the tower is to reach and invade the Incomparable Gardens above and claim it for herself. Within the Upper House are four large Drasil trees located at the four corners of the Upper House that are constantly growing at a rate faster than Saturday can build her tower. As these trees grow, the Incomparable Gardens move further upwards. The tower is seventeen thousand feet high and the Denizens that work in the tower all have different coloured umbrellas which can be used to determine the floor upon which they are near. The basic building blocks of the tower are wrought iron cubes with a grille floor and no ceiling. In order to stop the trees from growing, Saturday engineered the destruction of the Lower House and Far Reaches with the use of sorcerous drills that destroyed the dam wall of the Pit in the Far Reaches. The Nothing devoured the two demenses, cut off the trees' lowest roots, and therefore stunted their growth by 6%; enough to permit invasion. In Lord Sunday, the assault by Nothing on the bulwark of the Middle House destroys the main roots of the Drasils, and the Incomparable Gardens falls about a hundred metres into Saturday's Tower. It is then destroyed when a wave of Nothing created by the Architect's Will's completion destroys it. Noteable locations include: *Saturdays Tower The Incomparable Gardens Almost nothing is known about Lord Sunday’s demesne, the Incomparable Gardens. It is supposedly the most beautiful garden in the Universe, and is guarded by a variety of insectoid Nithlings resembling oversized worms and beetles. Dame Primus mentions that Denizens of this area of the House would be immediately noticeable in the Great Maze. The floor of the Incomparable Gardens is the roof of the Upper House and is constantly rising above the four Drasil trees which support it and grow to raise it. The branches of the trees attack anyone who comes near, and there are several beetle-like Nithlings guarding the trunks on the tree. It has been revealed by the Sixth Part of the Will that the Incomparable Gardens, rather than the entire House, is the Epicenter of the Universe and therefore essential to the latter's survival. At the end of Superior Saturday, Saturday breaks through the ceiling and reaches the Gardens, where readers discover the underside and a croquet lawn. It is possible that the Incomparable Gardens represent the Garden of Eden. During Lord Sunday, a fierce struggle ensues between Sunday and his legions of insects and troops, and Saturday with her army of Sorcerous Supernumeraries and other dangerous foes. The Piper, fleeing from the onslaught of nothing which annihilated the Lower House, the Far Reaches and the Great Maze, is hot on her heels. Arthur and the Glorious Army of the Architect, which now contains every Denizen under the command of Arthur and Dame Primus, takes refuge in the Middle House before launching a surprise attack on Saturday's tower which breached the floor of the Gardens.They are trapped between the Piper's Newniths and Saturday's reinforcements, which flood into the Gardens to join the fight. The Elysium, where Sunday makes a stand against the invading forces, was the first place to emerge from the Void, along with the Architect. It is later destroyed by a final wave of Nothing. Noteable locations include: *The Drasil trees *Sunday's Elysium ﻿ ﻿ Category:The Keys To The Kingdom